Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Another Day, Another Dolt

Last night's Newsnight featured a debate between Malcolm Rifkind and a New Labour toady Mike Gapes on the war in Iraq (available online for 24 hours). It was an odd feeling to find myself entirely in agreement with a Conservative MP. It doesn't happen often (I'm only including the "often" in this sentence because of this one case). Rifkind fairly ripped into Gapes who was left floundering, even resorting to accusing Rifkind of being a Saddam sympathiser. I thought we'd heard the last of that old chestnut but it appears that we have not. It really is a rather stupid "argument" for all sorts of reasons. It's a classic strawman.
My question for Gapes would be this:
North Korea is currently governed by nasty authoritarian dictator Kim Jong Il. Do you:
a) Support an immediate, poorly planned, and poorly executed military invasion of North Korea.
b) Support the government of Kim Jong Il.
Come on Gapes, which is it? A or B? Supporter or incompetant aggressor? It must be one or the other. Come on, answer...
Or, and this is my advice, you could just grow a brain and stop spouting such nonsense.

Gapes also said something odd. He said that after the December elections, Iraq will have a fully sovereign government with a new constitution. He added no caveats and he did not mention the October referendum on the constitution. "This is what will happen" was basically what he said. It seems a rather strange position given that most independent observers have expressed serious doubts as to whether the constitution will survive the vote. Gapes appears to have no such doubts. Strange.

It's an unrelated matter (cough), but does anyone know how many independent observers will be monitoring the fairness of the forthcoming referendum?

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